A Patch of Sunlight in the Woods

When Lewis writes about a “patch of sunlight in a wood,” memories of time “in the woods” flood my mind.

The most pleasantly memorable times of my growing up years were lived on a small island in the Great Lakes region of Northern Ontario, Canada. I enjoyed the forest. We’d hunt and fish. We regularly set snares and traps for food, and in some instances, marketable furs. But the times I treasured most were those in solitude.

I remember spending an afternoon watching Beaver build lodges and a dam. I marveled at their skills. They literally chewed through the 12 inch thick trunk of a tree with such precision that it fell into the stream. Then they just left it there lying in the water. “Why?” I wondered, “would they go to all that effort and then just walk and swim away?” So I made a point of revisiting that spot periodically. Some time later, when Fall had settled in and signs of Winter were stealing into the “Indian Summer,” I went back. The Beaver had obviously returned. A lot of the branches that were submerged had been chewed off and taken away. Sitting on a log nearby I thought about what had happened with those branches. My musings were interrupted by the appearance of two of those industrious critters. Each of them chewed away at a submerged branch and removed it. I watched intently. When they’d detached their branch they swam downstream to the dam with it. When they reached this now substantial levy they dove to the bottom of the pond their labors had created, pushing the larger end of the branch into the base of the structure.

It was then that it hit me. These phenomenal creatures instinctively knew that tree branches float on water. They had built lodges that stood mostly above the water. These edifices were havens for them and their offspring. In order to make them safe, and preserve underwater/ice access, they’d need to be submerged keeping out predators, and the cold winds of winter. They had to dam the stream until it became a pond or lake deep enough to provide that cover. Of course, if you’re going to build a dam out of wood you can’t have the timber floating downstream. It must stay where you put it alongside the other logs and branches. So, what do you do? You drop a tree in the stream and leave it there until most of it is completely soaked – water-logged – and take that “heavy” wood to places in the dam where it will have to remain submerged.

I stood amazed!

I had just seen “a patch of sunlight in a wood!”

Nature’s Engineers had demonstrated, for me, a young student, that a very wise Creator has shared His intelligence with all of Creation and there is no end to the wonders of His ingenuity!